


encounters in the city that never sleeps

by tvfanatic97



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, Spider-Man: Homecoming (2017)
Genre: Aged-Up Character(s), Alternate Universe, F/M, Mentions of the Marvel Netflix characters, RIP, Strangers to Lovers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-23
Updated: 2019-05-23
Packaged: 2020-03-13 07:42:25
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 11,250
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18936460
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tvfanatic97/pseuds/tvfanatic97
Summary: “We have to stop meeting like this, unnamed PI,” he greets cheekily.Automatically, at their own accord, her eyes roll up in response to his words. “You’re so-” she starts to say but stops when he whips his head back around to face the goons she’d almost forgotten were there for a second.-Or: MJ keeps running into the friendly neighborhood web slinger whilst she's out trying to be an investigator and do her job, but she doesn't entirely hate their encounters. A 'Jessica Jones' crossover, of sorts.





	encounters in the city that never sleeps

MJ readjusts her position, shuffling minutely along the metal grates of the fire escape to move closer to the edge so she can have a better vantage point. As she does so the metal beneath her digs into her stomach and ribs uncomfortably, and she’s also freezing her ass off out here but she has a job to do.

When she’s in a slightly better position she raises the borrowed camera, lens positioned to give her a good view of the apartment one floor down from where she’s situated in the apartment building opposite.

The couple she’s watching have their curtains wide open and all the lights in the apartment on making it much easier for her to capture the incriminating pictures the client had requested of the agency for her divorce proceedings. MJ can’t help but smirk to herself in satisfaction- it’s not often that a job turns out to be  _this_  easy- as she goes to capture a series of images.

Just as she’s about to press down on the shutter, tongue sticking out slightly in concentration and upper body hanging precariously nearly over the edge of the fire escape in between railings- an upside down face suddenly appears in front of her, startling her so much that at the same moment her hands fly up and thereby release the camera to tumble the distance to the ground, she also sits up and hurriedly shuffles back to the nearby wall, recoiling away from the potential threat.

“What the actual fuck!” she swears loudly.

It all happens within an instant, barely enough time for MJ to process or make sense of why there is a face in front of her when she’s six floors up, but the figure reacts immediately to catch the camera with one hand then to shoot out some weird material that attaches to her shoulder to tug her towards them and stop her head roughly colliding with the brick wall behind her in her haste and oh- she sees what’s going on here.  _Spider-Man_.

Once she’s recovered from the initial shock of his sudden appearance she finally moves, one hand reaching towards her shoulder to try and get his weird sticky webbing off whilst the other reaches forward. “Give me back my camera, asshole.”

He immediately, with an air of panic, hands her the camera which she places in her lap then uses both hands to try and work on the stupid webbing that’s not budging at all.

Frustrated at the lack of progress with getting this stuff off her, she reaches a hand down to her right boot and slips her knife out then tries to use it to maximise her efforts but to no luck. “Get this shit off me!” she shouts at the spandex-clad figure in front of her who’s now crouched on the handrail.

She hears him wince slightly then reach a hand up which goes up as if to run his fingers through his hair before he catches himself, likely remembering that he has a mask on, his hand travelling to nervously scratch at the back of his neck instead. “Um, you’re gonna have to wait for it to dissolve,” he says, voice quiet and tone nervous.

“Can’t you just, like, pull it off?” MJ asks impatiently.

“Well-” and he goes to scratch the back of his neck yet again and MJ momentarily muses about how the shy nervous masked figure in front of her doesn’t match up to her pre-conceived notions of what the infamous Spider-Man, terror to all of Queens’ criminals, would be like. “I could but I’d rip your jacket with it.”

MJ sighs dejectedly then closes her eyes, asking the universe to grant her patience.

Once she feels like she’s not gonna swear at the neighborhood’s beloved hero she finally blinks her eyes open then shuffles along the fire escape back to the edge figuring that she might as well take the pictures she came here for since she’s gonna be here for a while waiting for his crime fighting glue stuff to dissolve.

“Fuck,” she swears when she looks at the apartment she was spying on and sees that they have all the blinds and curtains closed now; they likely heard the commotion of Spider-Man scaring the crap out of her. She turns to face the figure still crouching on the handrail above her- that position cannot be comfortable- then fixes him with a threatening, displeased look he probably can’t make out given the lack of lighting out here, “You’ve ruined my job.”

The hero breathes out a laugh- a _laugh_ \- she cannot believe the cheek of this guy, “I’d say sorry but you were conducting unauthorised surveillance on private citizens so…”

MJ huffs annoyedly at him then shuffles back so she’s sitting against the wall again, “Are you gonna call the cops on me? Because I have a private investigator’s license, you know.”

“Oh you’re a private investigator?” He asks and MJ is offended by how genuinely surprised he sounds because, well, did he think she was just taking pictures of strangers for fun? That she’s some kind of pervert? He carries on, “Are you based here in Queens? Because I’m familiar with most law enforcement and PIs on my turf and I’ve never seen you before.”

““ _Your turf_ ”,” MJ deadpans bemusedly.

He ducks his head shyly in a way that would probably come off more endearing were his entire face not currently covered in bright red spandex.

After a beat she decides to humour him, it’s not like she has anything better to do whilst she waits for this damn webbing to dissolve off her jacket anyway, “To answer your question, no. I work out of an agency based in Hell’s Kitchen and uh, I only recently got my PI license.”

He tilts his head to the side in a thoughtful manner and wow, he really telegraphs his every emotion. MJ wonders how that works out for him as a superhero. “Out of Jessica Jones’ agency?” he finally asks once he’s pieced together the information she’d given him.

She doesn’t respond to his question which is answer enough and instead goes to pick up her camera and look to see if she managed to capture anything at all but she finds nothing so she switches it off and places it down next to her.

“So,” the masked vigilante starts after a stretch of silence. “What made you wanna be a PI? Because wanting to take pictures of cheating spouses as a job is certainly an… _interesting_  career choice.”

“Don’t be so judgemental, we all do what we have to to pay the bills and make ends meet,” she immediately fires back, slightly defensive.

“Oh, uh, s-sorry, I didn’t mean to be a judgemental asshole. I’m really so-” he stutters out.

She interjects to stop his verbal fumbling, “Please stop.” Then after a beat, in a much softer tone, “I had a bit of a hard time getting a paying job in my desired field after I graduated college. All I was offered were unpaid internships which are exploitative garbage designed for rich kids whose parents can support them whilst they “ _gain experience_ ” and work for free. I needed a job that pays and someone hooked me up with this one so here I am.”

“Oh, cool,” he replies, clearly unsure how else to respond. “So, does the person who hooked you up with this job happen to be Jessica Jones herself?”

“Stop fishing.”

“Okay, okay, my bad,” he says, putting his hands up in surrender.

They sit in silence for another stretch of time until the superhero eventually climbs down from the handrail to sit opposite her with his back pressed against the metal of the railing with his legs outstretched, only a few inches apart from her own outstretched legs.

He breaks the silence, “So, what’s your name?”

“Don’t you have dumb superhero things to do? Kittens to save from trees? Little girls who’ve lost their balloons? Any of that ringing a bell, Spider-Man” She fires off, slightly flippant.

“It’s like 10pm,” he retorts and MJ thinks she can almost make out the hint of a smile in his voice despite the fact that she can’t see his facial expressions with the mask and all.

“My point is, why are you still here?”

His slightly smug, bemused tone gives way to the usual nervous one she’s becoming accustomed to, “Oh, uh, I just feel bad for the whole webbing thing so thought I’d wait with you whilst it dissolves.”

“Well you saved me from the concussion I likely would have got from bashing my head against the wall so thanks, I guess,” she says quietly. “But then again- it was your fault I nearly cracked my skull open against the wall to begin with so I take that back, actually.”

Spider-Man laughs at that, like a full laugh that resonates from the diaphragm with his head thrown back and hand coming to clutch at his stomach slightly. The reaction is a tad dramatic, the joke wasn’t  _that_  funny, but MJ finds herself grinning at him in response almost automatically.

Eventually his laughter dies down then they go back to sitting in silence again.

MJ fishes her phone out of her jacket pocket to look at the time and estimates that it’s likely been about fifty minutes since the Spiderling got his webbing on her shoulder, meaning that she still has to wait over an hour.  _Great_.

MJ is not really a chatty person by nature and is fine with quiet-  _welcomes it_ , in fact- but for some reason she finds herself unable to sit in silence at this moment and feels necessitated to fill it, “So, what’s  _your_  name?”

He huffs out a laugh and shakes his head at her question. “I asked you first,” and the slight smug mirth from before has returned.

“I don’t wanna tell you my name.”

“Well, I don’t wanna tell you mine either.”

“Well I guess we’re at an impasse then.”

“I guess we are.”

“Okay.”

“Okay.”

She huffs, and rolls her eyes before digging her phone out to check how much time has passed. One hour left.

They sit in further silence, the only sounds being those of the city which carries on below them- passing traffic, pedestrians walking to various destinations, distant sirens, just the usual from the city that never sleeps.

“You think the people that live here will be back soon?” Spider-Man asks eventually, hand gesturing to the apartment behind them whose fire escape they’re perched on.

“No, the tenants are on vacation,” she answers him half-distractedly as she mindlessly scrolls through her work group chat looking through the messages she hadn’t read.

“How do you know that?”

“I scoped this place out a few days ago and didn’t see any movement, then when I broke into the apartment last night there was a pile of unopened mail going back like a week but their belongings were still there, ergo- vacation,” she explains without bothering to look up from her phone.

After a beat then another of silence from the hero sat in front of her she finally looks up at him to see his reaction.

“Y-you broke into their apartment?” He eventually gets out, the mechanical eyes of his suit widening, clearly shocked by her words.

She rolls her eyes at the reaction. “It’s not like I stole their stuff, I just wanted to check they were away and make sure that I could use their fire escape undisturbed.”

“Jesus,” he breathes out, voice barely above a whisper.

After a prolonged stretch where they sit in silence he breaks the silence again, “Are you okay with doing things like breaking and entering for the sake of your job?”

“Oh Jesus,” now it’s her turn to blaspheme. “I thought we talked about this whole judgement thing.”

“I just wanna know how you’re okay with breaking the law just to, what? Take pictures of someone’s cheating husband. Like how do you rationalise that in your head?”

MJ stuffs her phone back in her pocket and grabs her camera, putting the strap over her head so it rests over her shoulder then she rushes to get up. “Fuck you,” she spits out before she climbs down the fire escape to leave, not giving a damn that she still has the white goo stuck to her shoulder.

She doesn’t need to have her moral compass questioned by a guy who fights crime outside of the law as a vigilante. Fuck him.

 

* * *

 

 

MJ pauses for a moment to catch her breath before carrying on with her ascent up to the building’s roof, taking the remaining flights of stairs at a much slower pace than she’d started with when she was taking the stairs two at a time.

Finally,  _finally_ , she reaches the exit onto the roof. She reaches a hand up to her messy top bun and takes out two unnecessary hair clips that had been put into her hair for this exact purpose rather than to neaten the hair on the back of her head then uses them to unlock the door in front of her.

It takes a bit of fiddling and mild panic that maybe one of the tenants of the nearby apartments might hear her and come out to investigate but eventually she gets the door open. She pauses for a moment whilst she’s outside, allowing the slightly chilly wind to whip at her face before she inhales deeply which she immediately regrets because there’s no fresh air to be found anywhere, only the musty city smell.

After she’s caught her breath and gotten herself into the right state of mind to focus on the job at hand she walks out, headed to wards the edge of the roof where she’ll have the perfect view of the apartment building opposite so she can carry out her new assignment.

Her steps falter as she’s walking to the edge of the roof when she spots the familiar red and blue spandex-clad figure who’s perched on the ledge just ahead of her. He has the bottom half of his mask rolled up and is stuffing fries into his mouth. She’s inwardly satisfied to see that he’s white, just as she’d suspected.

MJ is certain she didn’t make any noise to announce her presence, she was careful, but the vigilante turns around where he’s sat to face her. “Oh, uh, hey there unnamed PI.”

Before she can stop herself, she groans aloud because of course, of all the rooftops in the city and in this borough she just happened to have come up onto the one Spider-Man is camped out on as well. Just wonderful.

She turns around to head back down- she can figure out another way to get this job down it’s fine, but is stopped by him calling out to her, “Wait! You don’t have to leave; I’m leaving soon then you can have the roof all to yourself I promise. I don’t wanna get in the way of your work again, just uh, don’t leave.”

She should leave, she really should, but something in his tone makes her reconsider. She sighs before turning around to go back to the ledge.

She tries to set up all her equipment as far away from him as she can but huffs when she realises the view from here is terrible and she’ll need to move closer to him for a better vantage point. She closes her eyes and pinches the bridge of nose at her dumb luck before she sighs, deciding she can put her feelings about the stupid vigilante aside and focus on the job.

She goes and sets up her surveillance equipment a couple of metres away from him then just waits for movement from the target apartment.

“Do you want some fries?” Spider-Man asks her, hand stretched out to offer her so McDonald’s fries.

“Nope,” she replies simply.

“Okay,” he says and MJ has to ignore the undertone of disappointment she detects in his voice.

After a stretch of silence where he eats his fries whilst MJ watches across the street for anything, he speaks up again. “Look-”

MJ interjects because she’s really not in the mood for another lecture and to have character questioned, “I thought you were leaving and I could have the roof all to myself?”

He seems slightly taken aback by her response and MJ almost rolls her eyes once again because,  _really_ , why is he surprised she’s being rude to him when he’d essentially called her a bad person during their last encounter.

He recovers from the slight shock then presses on, “I just wanted to apologise for what I said to you.”

That piques MJ’s interest.

“I’ve spent the past few weeks looking for you across the city to apologise but I couldn’t find you but uh, now that you’re here I just wanna say I’m sorry for how judgemental and awful I was to you. I’m a vigilante meaning I am breaking the law by my mere existence and I never signed the Sokovia Accords so I’m breaking federal law too. So, um, I guess I’m just saying I’m not in a position to be judging people when I break the law every time I put on this suit and you were right, people do what they have to to pay rent and bills. I should know that better than anyone with all the people I’ve encountered doing this superhero gig,” he finishes with a small humourless laugh.

She watches him for a moment and she hates that she can’t make out his full face to get a proper read on him but his tone tells her he means his words.

“For the record I didn’t break in, the building super let me in so I could have a look. And I really was only in there for like two minutes just to check they were away then I was out, I didn’t even touch anything,” she has no idea why she’s defending herself to this guy.

“You don’t have to explain yourself to me,” he replies, keeping his volume low to match hers. “Well actually, I guess you kinda do because I normally stop criminals like you so it’d be kind of a double standard to let it go for you just because you’re pretty.”

She sees the way the eyes of his suit widen, it’s almost comical, at the last part of his words. He definitely didn’t mean to say that part about her being pretty out loud, did he?

MJ decides not to tease him about the compliment as much as she finds that she wants to and instead takes a couple of steps towards him. “Gimme some fries,” she says impatiently, hand outstretched to accept them.

He doesn’t seem to mind her demanding tone as he just hands her a full portion of untouched fries from one of the three separate takeout bags he has on his lap and  _Jesus_ \- just how much does this guy eat?

She accepts the fries and starts eating them two at a time as she walks back towards where her camera with the telephoto zoom lens is set up.

“So what job are you working this time? Cheating husband? Cheating wife?”

“PIs don’t just take pictures of cheating partners, you know,” she says, rolling her eyes but she finds that she doesn’t really feel as annoyed as she lets on.

“If you say so,” he teases.

She turns back to face him, eyes narrowed at his tone before she huffs and turns back to face the apartment. “If you must know, we’re currently investigating a corrupt politician and he uses this apartment to hold off the book meetings.” Again, she has idea why she is just so openly explaining herself to him like this, completely unprompted and unnecessary.

“Ooh political intrigue, sexy,” he responds. Then after a moment he seems to catch himself, “Uh, I mean, cool- that’s… _cool_.”

MJ almost chokes on some fries when a laugh escapes. She’s usually so good at getting a read on people, she’s never caught off guard but with him she can’t pin him down and everything about the person he seems to be beneath the mask versus who she thought he was based on what she’s seen and heard of him from the media doesn’t line up at all. She’s caught off guard by him.

“So what exactly are you hoping to, like, capture if that’s the right word? Him accepting a wad of cash for bribes?” He asks again, seemingly unable to resist the urge to fill any silence.

“That’d be nice,” she snorts because that would be really nice, it’d certainly make their job a lot easier. “But, uh, no. Our investigation is just starting out so right now it’s mostly just gathering intel, establishing connections between key individuals, forming timelines of events etc. so our client can make a case against him.”

“Who’s your client?” he asks curiously.

“Why would I tell you that?” she responds incredulously.

“Fair enough,” he concedes. He waits no more than a minute before he’s off again, “You said “ _our investigation_ ” so I assume you’re working with other people? Jessica Jones maybe?”

She again rolls her eyes- it’s becoming something of an automatic response where spidey is concerned it seems. “I thought you weren’t gonna stay here for long?” she asks instead as she shoves the now empty fries package into her pocket, not wanting to litter on the roof.

“I have Karen scanning for reports of crime and I’m  _listening_  as well,” he says, all mysterious.

The part about “listening” is intriguing to her, she figures he probably has some kind of enhanced senses that allow him to look out for crime in a similar fashion to what her aunt had told her about the devil of Hell’s Kitchen.

The other part of what he said finally catches up to her, “Who’s Karen?”

“AI installed in my suit,” he answers with no hesitation. “You never answered my question,” he adds.

She almost groans out loud because God he’s so persistent and so…so  _annoying_. “Look, I have a job to do and need to focus on that apartment so I don’t miss anything,” she says pointing a thumb out towards the apartment a few floors down.

“The apartment is empty and I’d tell you if there was movement,” he fires back.

“How do you know it’s empty?” she asks, turning to face him with eyes narrowed with suspicion.

“Spider sense,” he replies, voice slightly sing-songy.

She bursts out laughing at his response before she can catch herself, her head going back almost at its own accord as she laughs loudly and heartily in a way she doesn’t remember doing in a while.

She has to put a hand up over her mouth to muffle her mouth and nose when she accidentally snorts, like a full on embarrassing pig-like snort of laughter. She looks to him and she can somehow sense just how pleased he is at having gotten that reaction out of her, even with the mask, so she composes herself and forces the remnants of her laughter down.

She clears her throat a few times for good measure. “Did you come up with that name yourself?” she asks in a teasing tone, attempting to regain some measure of dignity after that little embarrassing display of… _joy_.

He breathes out a small laugh, “No, my uh-  _someone else_  came up with it.”

She thinks he was almost about to reveal something about himself to her there. She tampers down the pang of disappointment that he didn’t and presses on with her teasing instead, “Do you have other things you’ve named by adding the word “Spider” to like in ‘ _Batman and Robin_ ’?”

He groans very loudly.

“Spider mobile? Spider cave? Spider signal? Spider card?” she fires them off in quick succession, enjoying his torment a little too much.

“No, no I don’t. Just the Spider sense.” He waits a beat then another, “Well, there’s also Spider-drone or-” he pauses briefly, “-or “droney” for short.”

“Oh my God,” she squeals in unbridled delight.

“Please have mercy on me,” he pleads.

“Queens’ own local superhero is a huge dork, who’d have known, though- it probably should have been obvious from the completely garish red and blue spandex suit.”

“It’s not spandex!” he protests, tone showing that he’s actually kind of offended.

“Looks like spandex to me,” she continues teasing.

“Oh my god it’s-” he’s about to further protest and likely explain to her exactly why it’s not spandex when he pauses, his head tilting outwards towards  the rest of the city as he seems to listen to something.

After a stretch he starts to get up. “Uh, I gotta go. Duty calls and all,” he says and she may be mistaken but he genuinely sounds sorry and slightly disappointed to go which is ridiculous because why would he be disappointed that he has to leave someone whose name he doesn’t even know?

Except…maybe she can kind of understand where he’s coming from.

“See you around Spiderling, I’ll set off the Spider signal if I need you,” she says with barely contained amusement.

“Ha ha,” he sarcastically laughs at her words except he sounds like he actually finds her words funny thereby undermining how annoyed by her antics he tries to act. “See you around, unnamed PI,” he bids her farewell.

MJ has a brief, rash moment where she almost tells him her name but he’s swinging away before she has the chance, leaving her alone to grumble at the pile of his trash he’s just left there on the roof. Spider-Man is a litterer huh.

She shakes her head and lets out a small laugh then turns back to her camera to watch the apartment opposite where she sees the lights come on.

Right. She has a job to do.

 

* * *

 

 

She slows her pace slightly as she rounds the corner.

She wills herself to pick her pace back up given that the footsteps behind her sound like they’re getting closer and closer but her throat is burning, chest heaving up and down in a desperate attempt to get some oxygen into her lungs. Her legs are also burning, lactic acid starting to build from the exertion, and she feels a bead-  _several_  beads, actually- of sweat roll down her forehead as her body desperately tries to thermoregulate.

She finds that last remaining bit of endurance she was hiding somewhere within her and picks up her pace a bit to lengthen the gap between her and her chasers and she smirks to herself thinking, I got this. She’s gonna get away. She can do this.

Except the very next moment she stops in her tracks as she realises the alley that she’d run into has a dead end.

 _Fuck_.

Of course, of course, she’s managed to run into a closed off alleyway whilst being chased by two massive muscular dudes who she’s pretty sure both have handguns. If she wasn’t actually kind of terrified for her life she’d take a moment to laugh about how cliched this is, the whole running to a dead end when you’re being chased like she’s some damsel in distress.

The two goons- whom she hadn’t realised are permanently posted to guard that stupid politician’s off the books apartment before she’d snuck into the building determined to break into the apartment to look around after concluding that it was empty- round the corner and start running towards the end of the alley where she is.

When they see that it’s a dead end they slow to a casual walking pace, clearly feeling cocky and confident that they’ve got her the way goons like them always do in the movies when they think they’ve won.

MJ considers her options. The fence has some covering over it which would make scaling it difficult so that option is out. She could scream, but what use would that be here in the world’s capital of minding your own business? She thinks of the knife tucked away safely in her boot but almost instantly dismisses the idea, what the hell is she gonna do with a knife against two guns. Stupid, stupid, stupid.

The goons are getting closer and closer to her, and MJ’s state of panic and terror is worsening with each step they take.

And as if this whole situation wasn’t already cliched enough, a figure jumps down seemingly from nowhere and comes to land between her and the goons in a stance that’s too graceful and too superhero-like in a way that doesn’t match the dork she’s come to know actually lives beneath that red mask.

“Fellas, what’s up! How’s everyone doing tonight?” he calls out, all casual and bemused, to the two goons who have slowed to a near stop. He then turns back to look at her and she can’t see his face- has never seen it to properly picture what it looks like, actually- but she just knows he has a cocky grin plastered on it. “We have to stop meeting like this, unnamed PI,” he greets cheekily.

Automatically, at their own accord, her eyes roll up in response to his words. “You’re so-” she starts to say but stops when he whips his head back around to face the goons she’d almost forgotten were there for a second.

Within an instant he shoots out webs from both hands, yanking both the goons’ raised guns out of their hands. They land a little bit ahead of her on the ground so she makes herself useful by rushing forward to grab them, to keep them away from the goons obviously, not to like, use them herself.

At the same time Spider-Man leaps a distance that probably easily breaks the standing long jump world record towards the two guys and throws a kick at one goon’s head which knocks him out cold before he lands on the ground. Once both his feet hit the ground he doesn’t even give goon number two a change to respond, throwing a well-aimed right hook which knocks him out cold. With minimal effort he moves both guys, each of whom are like twice his size, so they’re sitting side-by-side leant against the wall with their hands and feet bound using his webbing.

MJ is too embarrassingly mesmerised by watching him in action and is only knocked out of her haze by the vigilante she was ogling now standing right in front of her having taken away the guns she had in her hands at some point, and now snapping his fingers at her to grab her attention which is kinda rude, but then so was the ogling probably so she lets it go.

“Hey, uh, I said do you have a pen?” he asks once he’s got her attention. Sheepishly he adds, “And some paper as well?”

She rolls her eyes- automatic response to him, it’s not her fault- but reaches to bring her backpack to her front and digs up a pen and notepad for him to use. He jots something down then rips out the page and hands her back her pen and notepad before jogging over to the now knocked out goons to stick the note on them before jogging back to her.

He looks her up and down closely, likely checking for injuries or whatever, for a moment before he speaks, “Are you okay?”

“Yeah, yeah I’m okay.” Her voice sounds too unsteady and unsure so she tries to bring some levity to the situation, “I  _totally_  had the situation under control.”

It has the intended effect as he huffs out a small laugh, one like he always does at her words, one that’s almost saying “gosh, I cannot believe her”. “Sure you did,” he teases.

“It was all part of my plan to have those goons chase me with guns, it’s part of the evidence gathering process. It’s a PI thing, you wouldn’t get it,” she carries on.

“I thought the PI thing was just taking pictures, from a  _safe_  distance away?” his tone is suddenly serious. “What were you even doing?”

She sighs, partly annoyed but also kind of understanding his concern as annoying as it may be. “I noticed this filing cabinet when I was doing recon, and I wanted to get a closer look at it. I thought I could sneak into the apartment when it was empty and look to see if anything of importance is in that cabinet, anything that could help end this investigation and nail this corrupt son of a bitch. Maybe take a picture or two of what I found whilst I was at it.”

“But the goons were guarding the apartment,” he finishes off for her. It’s not phrased like a question which surprises her before she remembers he’s a superhero who’s had many dealings with shady characters like this all the time and knows their moves after nearly a decade of experience.

“The goons were guarding the apartment,” she confirms unnecessarily.

He sighs and it sounds weary. She expects him to give her some speech begging her to be more careful, to not put herself in such dangerous situations which honestly, after being chased by two massive 6”5’ dudes with guns she knows herself and isn’t in the mood to hear from someone else.

Instead of the lecture she’s expecting what he says instead is, “Do you want me to- I mean,  _can I_  walk you home? Please?”

That’s unexpected, and again she finds that he’s caught her off guard the way so very few people ever manage to do. Because she’s her what she responds with is, “Ew, so you can know where I live creep?”

The eyes of his suit widen in panic and she can tell the ramble that’s about to come out of him before he even starts, “No,  _no_. I- I just, I thought I’d offer for your safety because you don’t know if those guys informed anyone else about you snooping around so there could be people looking for you. Please. I won’t walk you right to your door, we can go up to a few blocks away from your place or wherever you feel most comfortable walking with me up to then I’ll leave you alone. I’d never-  _God_.”

“I’m just messing with you Spiderling. I’d really appreciate the escort home actually,” she finally says, putting him out of his misery.

She hears the way he exhales in relief at her words. Dork.

They walk out of the alleyway together, going past the two bound and knocked out goons and the paper stuck on them which she can now see says:

> **These very bad men were chasing a woman who was alone in this alleyway with guns (The guns are webbed up on the wall). Thanks, Spider-Man :-)**

She smiles a small smile to herself at the note, she’s still trying to come to terms with the fact that the hero she’d just watched knock out two armed men with an ease that’s almost insulting is the same one who wrote a note and signed it with a smiley face. A dork, an actual dork.

The first half of the journey to her apartment is spent in a comfortable silence, but then spidey eventually breaks it, “So other than today’s… _mishap_ , how’s your investigation into the mayor going?”

She can’t say she’s surprised that he’d done some digging himself to figure out who she was investigating so she doesn’t bother to press him about how he knows it’s the mayor. “Today wasn’t a “mishap” I told you it was all part of my plan,” she huffs exasperatedly. Tone turning more serious she carries on, “Um, the investigation’s is going really well actually. Obviously they can’t use some of the stuff  we’ve gathered as part of their evidence, but it’s pointed the official investigation in the right direction so they can gather it lawfully. Jess says they’re probably gonna nail him soon.”

“When you say “ _Jess_ ”-”he starts to say.

She rolls her eyes. “Yes I mean Jessica Jones. God, do you have a crush on her or something?”

“A “ _crush_ ”? What are we, twelve?” he retorts good-naturedly.

“I don’t know anything about you besides that you have a crush on my aunt, you could very well be twelve for all I know.”

Belatedly she realises that she’d let that personal detail about Jess being her aunt slip out unintentionally. Spider-Man luckily doesn’t directly address her little slip up, “I am  _not_  twelve years old. And I don’t have a crush on Jessica Jones.”

MJ turns her head sideways slightly, still staying in step with him, and eyes him dubiously until he caves.

“Okay, I don’t have a crush on Jessica Jones… _anymore_. I kind of, maybe, used to when I was a teenager though,” he admits.

MJ does the math in her head. Based on how long Jess has been in the public eye and him saying he had a crush when he was a teenager, she figures he’s likely around the same age as her plus or minus roughly three to four years. She’s not the only one who let a personal detail about themselves slip tonight it seems.

“What was it that made you attracted to her? The snarky attitude? The neck snapping?” She instantly regrets that last joke, Jess is only just coming to a place where she can joke about that but that doesn’t give MJ the right to joke about it.

“What? No, no, uh, it’s dumb don’t worry,” he says quietly, embarrassed.

“Dumb?” she enquires, suddenly really interested in hearing this.

He sighs out, “It’ll sound like a line.”

“Let me have it.”

He hesitates for a stretch of time then finally, “I just- I like strong women, I guess.”

MJ’s steps falter as she comes to a stop and she throws her head back and lets out a loud laugh. She lets out quite a few laughs actually, laughing in a way she remembers only doing recently with him. Spider-Man just watches her from a few steps ahead, also having stopped in his tracks.

When her laughter eventually dies down she reaches a hand up to wipe at the slight tears that were starting to form. “Oh that was good. Real  _smooth_. You got anymore of those Spider-chat up lines?”

He groans very loudly as they resume walking.

“Please stop adding the word in “spider” in front of everything,” he complains.

“Why? You do it,” she responds, all cheek and amusement.

Again, he groans very, very loudly and she’s thankful that on a Saturday night like this the city is vibrant and alive, noisier than usual, meaning all their raucous is drowned out and barely registers in the cacophony of the other sounds.

She carries on teasing him between hiccups of laughter, “Spider sense, Spider-drone…”

“I am begging you, please stop.”

Later she’ll reason that it’s the remnants of adrenalin from the life or death situation she was in previously still pumping in her blood that drives her actions. Now though, she finds herself responding with a slightly flirtatious, “Make me.”

He chokes on nothing and erupts into a coughing fit and they have to stop for a minute or two whilst he recovers.

When he finally stops, he starts to walk again then turns to look at her. “Uh, where are we going?” he asks, bringing her out of the little bubble they were previously immersed in as she looks around her and remembers where they are,  _remembers herself_.

It’s when she looks up that she realises that they’re here at her little, quaint apartment building.

“We’re here actually, I live just here,” she says pointing a finger up to the living room window of her corner apartment on the fourth floor. She has no idea why she told him exactly which apartment is hers. She clears her throat, “Well, uh, thanks spidey. For being my security escort.”

He just nods his head slightly in response.

“And um, for saving my life. I didn’t say it before but, thank you. I owe you one,” she adds, volume quieter than it had been a few streets ago when they were bantering and maybe flirting because her street in much quieter than where they’d come from.

“It’s no problem, unnamed PI,” he replies, voice equally quiet.

She walks up the steps to the building entrance after getting her keys out of her bag and pauses just as she’s about to unlock the door. She does a 180 on the spot and faces him, “My name is Michelle Jones by the way. MJ to my friends.”

After her little slip up where she revealed that Jessica Jones is her aunt she knows that it’s not entirely necessary to tell him her name given that with that little titbit of information he probably could’ve done some digging and found out who she is by himself. But there is intent and meaning behind the gesture, it’s an olive branch of sorts, an offer of friendship she’s extending to him.

He seems to accept the offer, “So we’re friends, huh?”

She has to resist the urge to roll her eyes. “Don’t push it.”

“Goodnight,  _MJ_ ,” he says after a moment, tone even and she can hear the smile in his voice so clearly that she’s almost able to visualise it beneath the mask.

“Goodnight, Spiderling,” she responds with a smile of her own before she unlocks her door and goes inside, leaving him stood in front of her building watching after her.

 

* * *

 

 

She turns and surveys the area around her once more. Left to right, right to left. It’s empty just as it’d been the other twenty times she checked and double checked the alleyway.

MJ steels herself and finally walks into the slightly darkened alleyway by herself for the first time in a while; a small victory.

She walks through the alleyway until she reaches the fire escape, except the ladder is up and out of her reach. She looks around to see what options available to her when she spots the giant wheeled trash can, like this is a movie. Just great.

This isn’t like in the movies where the protagonist can drag the trash can to the fire escape, all ease and whimsy, then climb onto it to grab the ladder to climb up. The trash can is actually really heavy and difficult for her to wheel to right below the fire escape because it’s filled to the brim with well,  _trash_.

She huffs and huffs with effort, pausing to take a few breaths and wipe away beads of sweat (there’s no sweat, she’s just being overly dramatic) then eventually after nearly fifteen minutes of effort, gets the trash can to where she wants it.

Once it’s in position, climbing up on to it turns out to be another challenge in itself. She’s tall, with most of that height being her legs so really she should be able to hike up onto the trash can with a relative ease but whilst she may have the long legs she has none of the athleticism required to climb up with that relative ease. So cue further huffing and puffing and straining before she eventually manages to get up on the trash can, nearly falling on her ass like three or four times but no one else is here to witness it so she’ll just pretend that didn’t happen.

She pauses whilst kneeling on the lid of the trash can to catch her breath after all the energy and effort she’s exerted to get to where she is. When she’s caught her breath she finally stands up with great care and goes to reach up to grab the fire escape ladder to start her ascent.

Except- as she does something catches her eye on the wall ahead of her.

It’s a bunch of her buddy’s webbing and she can make out something, could be a bag or maybe a coat or something, beneath all the layers of webbing. And she’s a detective- or investigator, technically per her job title- so she can’t be blamed when she shuffles forward to further investigate.

He’s likely been gone for quite a while because the webbing is starting to dissolve around the backpack meaning instead of the secure hold he’d likely left it in has melted into a snug pouch from which she can easily pull the backpack up and out of. Which is exactly what she does because she’s inquisitive and nosy by nature.

She puts the backpack on so it sits on her front whilst her own is on her back then reaches up to grab the fire escape ladder then climbs up, going all the way up to the roof.

Once she’s there she sets up shop with all her equipment out, ready to go. The only issue is that the apartment she’s watching is still empty, her target not having arrived back yet, meaning she doesn’t have much to do but wait. As she waits her curiosity starts to grow and grow until she eventually gives in and opens the mysterious backpack.

MJ had genuinely assumed maybe it was some criminal’s backpack with evidence that spidey was keeping safe to hand to the police or something- which in hindsight, is a really dumb assumption- so she’s surprised when she opens the backpack to find… _not that_. Instead of the drugs and guns and cash she’d envisioned, what she finds in the backpack are regular things- clothes, a water bottle, some notebooks and the like.

She really should have stopped riffling through the backpack after realising it was nowhere near as interesting as she thought it would be, but her brain doesn’t catch up to her hands which keep searching. She keeps looking through it until she finds a student ID card for a Peter Parker; an ESU master’s student who if her calculations based on the expiry date of the ID card are correct, is her age.

 _Oh no_.

She hurriedly shoves everything back into the backpack, zips it up and places it on the ground away from her. She wants to just forget the backpack and go back to her work but she finds that she can’t, instead just sitting in place looking ahead, frozen in place by the weight of her discovery.

She doesn’t know how long she sits like that for, all she knows is that she blinks and suddenly there is Spider-Man. Swinging towards the apartment building, likely to go and look for the very backpack that’s sat on the ground beside her.

She waits a beat…then another…and another and then he suddenly lands on the other side of the roof and immediately starts pacing.

The roof is small enough and his voice as he speaks to himself loud enough that he can hear his inner-  _outer_ \- monologue, “Shit, shit, fuck. How am I an adult and still managing to lose my backpacks like this, this is so-”

He freezes comically in a way that MJ would normally laugh at her if she were feeling like herself. Like he sensed her presence, which is likely given that Spider sense she’s teased him about, he turns to face her.

“Oh, uh, hi MJ. We have to stop running into each like this, h-” the joke dies down once he spots the previously presumed lost backpack sitting there, right next to her. “Where did you get that? Did you open it? Why do you even have it?” the questions spill out of him one after the other with no pause, like a leaky faucet.

“Um, I-” MJ finds that her words fail her.

“Fuck,” he swears, voice low but laced with meaning as he puts two and two together and makes sense of the picture in front of him.

He then speed walks towards her and MJ flinches slightly at the purpose behind it as he comes to stand right in front of her, towering over her in a way she’d have never thought possible given that she has a couple of inches on him height wise.

“So you know?” he asks and all she can do is nod slowly. “Fuck,” he swears under his breath again then he paces in front of her a few times.

He stops again. “Who asked you to investigate me, huh? Your aunt and her friends? Or was it someone else? Fisk? The police?”

MJ blinks in confusion at the question he’s asking because how could he think she was- that she  _could_ …

“What? No, I wasn’t investigating you,” she finally finds her voice.

“Then how do you explain all the coincidental meetings? It was all leading up to this wasn’t it?”

“They were just that, coincidence,” she says, trying to keep her anger and frustration at bay because despite the lack of trust demonstrated by his assumption he does have every right to be angry at her, at the violation of his privacy.

“Then why did you open the backpack?” he all but shouts out the question, the intensity of it again causing her to almost flinch.

“I- I don’t know,” she breathes out. “I didn’t know what it was, I thought it was some criminal’s backpack or evidence or something. Which I know sounds dumb but you have to believe me, I didn’t do this on purpose. I wasn’t looking to “unmask” you or whatever, this just happened.”

For a long moment he doesn’t respond.

“I want to believe you,” is all he finally says. The  _but_  goes unsaid but hangs in the air between them all the same.

“I’m sorry, I’m really sorry,” it’s all she can say at this point.

“Sorry doesn’t change anything.”

“No, no it doesn’t,” she adds in a dejected tone. After another stretch of silence she catches herself because she didn’t purposefully do anything wrong, and she needs to get a hold of yourself. “But just to be clear, if I was investigating you I wouldn’t have bothered to put in the effort of befriending you and spending all that time with you and I probably would have found out who you are weeks ago because I’m really observant and really,  _really_ , fucking good at the investigating part my job.” Just not all the physical running and climbing part.

He breathes out a laugh but there’s no humour to it, not really.

She presses on, “You trust me, right? I know you must trust me to some extent because every time we’ve run into each other I always have this camera with me, I could’ve very well been a reporter secretly recording you and taking pictures of you but you trusted that I wasn’t. So trust me now when I tell you that this was a complete accident, I didn’t mean to find out your identity.”

She says it with conviction as she stares straight up into his mechanical eyes to ensure her words really get through to him.

He exhales audibly but doesn’t say anything. He moves to sit on the ground opposite her, but still maintains a distance between them, then he does something unexpected by reaching up to pull his mask off. He looks very different to his ID picture, less startled than in the picture.

“There are people that could get hurt- that have been hurt- because of me, MJ. I can’t have my identity being out there because the people I care about would be in danger so I need to know that you’re not going to do anything with this, I’ll do whatever you want but please just-” he breaks down, leaving him unable to finish what he wants to.

MJ gets up and walks towards him, doing so slowly to allow him the chance to stop her advance, but when he doesn’t she caries on and comes to crouch in front of him. She grabs his hands and wraps them up in her own then catches his eye and maintains their eye contact before speaking, “Peter, my aunt’s girlfriend Trish has been hurt by some very bad people who were trying to get to her so I get it, believe me. I promise you I’m not going to do anything with this.” After a moment allowing her words to properly sink in she then goes in a lighter tone, “In fact I’ll forget I ever found out or ever met you right now if you want. If I climb up onto a rooftop and find you I’ll turn right back around and leave and I’ll ignore you if you ever swing by.”

Peter breathes out another laugh, some humour having returned to it this time. “Thanks MJ and uh, you don’t have to forget you found out who I am. To be honest, part of is kind of glad you did.”

“Yeah?” MJ doesn’t know why she’s so nervous.

“Yeah, uh, you showed me yours so it was my turn to show you mine,” he breathes out.

It’s only then that MJ becomes aware of the fact that his hands are still tightly in her own, becomes aware of their proximity with their faces really,  _really_  close to each other.

It feels right and like second nature when they slowly start to drift towards one another, like it was inevitable.

MJ catches herself just as her eyelids are growing heavy and starting to close and she leans in closer and closer. She pulls her hands away from his quickly, embarrassingly quickly, then stands up from her crouching position before taking two large steps back so she’s by the ledge before rapidly turning to face the other way and catch her breath.

“Um, I’ve gotta go and do this job. Sorry,” she mumbles as she busies herself with packing her things away. When she’s done she puts her bag on her back then turns back to face him, “Well uh, bye Spiderling…or should I say, _Peter_.” The name sits weirdly on her tongue and she decides that she much prefers calling him “Spiderling”.

“See you around, MJ,” he breathes out.

She’s ashamed to admit that she runs across the roof away from him after they say their goodbyes.

 

* * *

 

 

When MJ walks into her apartment and switches on the light then locks up she’s half-distracted, her attention focused on the phone in her hand where she’s reading the news article written by Karen Page on all the events leading up to the arrest of the mayor.

She’s still looking down at her phone reading the article as she toes off her shoes and takes the heavy backpack off her back, taking a moment to roll away some of the tension in her shoulders  from lugging the bag around all night.

She goes into her room without bothering to switch the light on and fumbles around on the floor near her bedside table for her phone charger and plugs her phone in before making her way out to head to the bathroom.

After brushing her teeth and washing her face she pads back to her bedroom and finally, finally switches on her bedroom light. She’s just about to change out of her day clothes and into her pajamas when she remembers that she hadn’t closed her curtains before, and even though it’s nearly 3am she’s still too paranoid to change with them open- sue her.

She turns to go and close them when she halts in her steps after noticing the blood smeared on her window. Her eyes pan down, following the trail to the bottom of her window where she finds a recognisable figure lying on the ground.

“Oh my God,” she breathes as she rushes to the door of the fire escape.

She doesn’t even notice the chill of the late autumn air as she steps outside, more focused on the figure who isn’t moving much. She crouches down and first presses two fingers to his neck where she finds a pulse- it’s strong and steady, which has to be a good sign. Plus he’s breathing, so the situation can’t be as dire as it initially appeared, right?

However despite those positive signs he doesn’t budge or wake when she shakes him or presses on his breastbone, meaning she’ll have to move him inside herself.

That turns out to easier said than done because Peter is like really heavy for someone not that tall, and it takes her ten minutes of failed attempt after failed attempt and a lot of physical exertion before she finally manages to get him through the door.

She’s so relieved and so exhausted that she accidentally drops him and he lands with a loud thud that she knows she’ll hear about from her elderly downstairs neighbor tomorrow.

“Shit, shit, shit,” she swears with feeling as she rushes to close and lock her door before closing the curtains like she originally intended to. After she’s done she then turns back to the guy she’s just dropped not so gently onto her wooden floor by her bed to find him stirring.

He sits up in an instant and looks around hurriedly in confusion as he tries to figure out where he is. His eyes finally notices her then he takes off his mask so he can really look at her and a small smile breaks out on his face almost instantly as soon as he does. “We have to stop meeting like this,” he jokes.

She rolls her eyes as she comes to kneel in front of him. “What are you doing here? What the hell happened to you?” she asks as her eyes scan over him.

“I kind of got shot,” he says in a nervous voice, eyes darting around the room to look at anything but her.

“ _You_ -” she catches herself and lowers her voice, controlling the anger bubbling up to the surface. “You need to go to a hospital, oh my God. Why would you come here?”

“It was just a through and through. I checked and no bullet. I have accelerated healing so it should be fine but um, I kind of need you to stitch me up because I can still like, get infections even though I have a healing factor. I mean you do owe me from that time I saved your life, remember?” He looks at her unimpressed expression and adds, “ _Please_.”

“I can’t just “ _stitch you up_ ”, who do you think I am? I don’t know how to,” she huffs incredulously because why does he expect her to just know how to do that?

“Oh it’s really easy, just like sewing a button,” he tries to reassure her. “I trust you, MJ.”

She rolls her eyes at his persuasive declaration before she gets up and goes to her closet to look through the bag of stuff Jess had left here a while ago where she finds the small suture kit at the bottom. She then goes and unplugs her phone and uses Google to figure out what else she needs, which she gathers before she comes to settle on the ground next to Peter who has his suit rolled down to his waist to expose his wound which leaves him topless.

“Thank you again for doing this, MJ.”

She shushes him because she’s trying to concentrate on the tutorial video on how to do this and his presence is distracting enough.

When she think she sort of has an idea of what to do she finally puts her phone down, though she keeps it within reach with the video still open just in case, and gets to work on stitching the dumbass arachnid up.

They sit in silence as she works, the only sounds being their synchronous breathing along with the faint sounds she makes as she moves and stitches. She’s incredibly close to him like this and is suddenly hyper-aware of the fact that his top half is bare and he has  _muscles_ \- quite a few of them, actually. It’s overwhelming.

“You’re an asshole,” she blurts out before she can stop herself.

Peter laughs at the declaration, body moving too much that it gets in the way of her work. “Can you stop laughing and moving so much, I am trying to work,” she snaps, but there’s no bite to it.

He clears his throat and stops laughing, body going still again. “Sorry,” he mumbles.

“Like I was saying, you’re an asshole,” she starts up again after a brief moment and she can see Peter physically having to stop himself from laughing and keep still. “Why did you come here? Why not go to your friend’s who named your Spider sense? Or the hospital or literally  _anywhere_  else?”

“I felt going bad to Ned’s, it’s so late.” MJ wants to remind him that it’s really late for her too and yet here he is but she bites her tongue and lets him carry on, “I didn’t wanna go to Ned’s because then I’d have to explain it to Betty his girlfriend- she doesn’t know about all of this, so…”

Okay fine, so maybe she gets why he didn’t go to his close friend’s but, “Why here? Why  _me_?”

“Honestly I don’t know, I needed someone I could trust and you were the first person that popped into my mind,” he admits quietly, shyly.

MJ’s breath catches in her throat at the admission. He trusts her.

He carries on, “I don’t know why I said you “popped into my mind” as if there was a time you weren’t in it, like you haven’t been all I can think about for the past few weeks.”

Where her breath got slightly caught in her throat before this time it’s sucked out of all her leaving her feeling breathless, head heavy and dizzy.

She pauses where she’s stitching up and looks up to meet his eye. She finds him looking back at her with an assured gaze, not shying away from her. He looks at her with a confidence and assuredness that she’s only seen in him when he was Spider-Man fighting those two goons that were chasing after her. But they are one in the same aren’t they; Peter Parker and Spider-Man.

She smiles a small nervous smile, slight acknowledgement of his words and their meaning.

She then gets back to work to finish up stitching. “So just because we had an almost-moment on that roof three weeks ago, you thought that meant you could come here and bleed out on my fire escape?” she asks as she’s finishing off his stitching, trying her best to mask the laugh bubbling within her.

Peter doesn’t try to hide his own laughter, instead letting it escape and ring out in her room. Loud, hearty and  _rich_.

“We had an “ _almost-moment_ ”, did we?” he asks with keen interest once he’s stopped laughing for long enough.

She ties off her stitching and shoves everything into a trash bag nearby before moving to sit down on the floor next to Peter. “You’re an asshole,” she breathes out.

This time when they’re slowly pulled towards one another, she closes her eyes and gives in to the pull, gives into the inevitable.

The press of their lips together is gentle and learning.

She pulls away when breathing becomes necessity and blinks her eyes open so she can stare at him. “Is this why you came here?”

“Of course not,” he says, but there is mirth dancing within his eyes and he has a barely contained grin on his face.

She wants to call him out on his bullshit but he’s pulling her back to reconnect their lips before she gets the chance.

 

* * *

 

 

She registers the faint sounds of the city around her- tipsy and loud pedestrians on the ground below, the faint flickering of the light of a nearby billboard that needs fixing, and distant traffic and sirens. But she ignores them and turns her focus to the apartment building in front of her, zooming in to get a closer look.

She shuffles slightly along the metal grates of the fire escape, going closer to the edge for a better vantage point. She’s just about to take a picture when a figure suddenly lands, quite loudly, beside her thereby breaking her concentration.

She has to restrain herself from groaning out loud and shouting at him because she doesn’t want to make too much noise and draw attention to them and cause the people she is watching to close their curtains.

She sits up and turns her head to face the recognisable figure who is crouched beside her, mask now completely off and hair going every which way the way it always does after he takes his mask off.

He grins happily at her, “We have to stop meeting like this.”

She rolls her eyes- it’s automatic- but she also grins back at him happily- that’s automatic _too_ , now. “I think this apartment building might have a spider infestation,” she jokes.

“Ha ha,” he lets out, going for sarcastic but he still has a wide grin plastered on his face. “I got you coffee and a burrito but if you’re gonna be rude and make bad spider jokes…”

She fixes him with an unimpressed glare.

“Okay fine, here,” he gives up as he turns to grab the burrito and coffee cup on the other side of him to pass them to her.

She hides her victorious smirk as she immediately digs into her burrito, finishing it embarrassingly quickly given how hungry she was which she’d texted Peter about, hence him showing up whilst she’s working.

“So what’s mission report? The status report?” Peter questions.

“Did you get that from a video game? That’s not PI language.”

“Maybe I did.”

“How embarrassing, you’re pushing 25.”

“You play SIMS!” he fires back.

“What’s your point?”

“You know what-” he starts but then deflates as he lets it go. “What’s been happening with our guys?”

MJ scoffs, “There’s no “ _our guys_ ”, these are  _my_  guys. I’m the one freezing my butt off watching them sit and watch TV.”

“I literally hired you to collect intel on these goons for me…” Peter responds.

“Don’t you have superhero stuff to do? I can hear a lot of sirens Spiderling, just saying,” she sighs out childishly.

“I put up with so much,” he huffs out as he starts to roll his mask back on. He doesn’t put it all the way on and leaves the bottom half of his face exposed. “You’re lucky you’re cute,” he adds as he shuffles closer to her before pressing his lips against hers in what’s meant to be a chaste kiss but they both get a little carried away.

When they pull apart she gives his shoulder a little shove, “Get out of here, I have a job to do.” She presses one more kiss to his lips, this one chaste, just for the road.

Peter rolls his mask the rest of the way down before he swings away and MJ watches him for a moment with a small smile on her face until he’s too far to keep watching. She then turns back to look at the apartment she’s meant to be watching. 

Right.  _She has a job to do_.

**Author's Note:**

> me vs not posting thousands of massive oneshots to distract away from the fact that I haven't updated any of my three multichaps in months :)  
> Anywhoooo...hope you enjoyed this one. As always, comments and kudos are much appreciated (pls I'm desperate from external validation from strangers on the internet)!!
> 
> Find me on tumblr @tvfanatic97-2 and on twitter @dayaspsychic x


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